


Hunger/Fall

by CadetDru



Series: Seven Sins of the Arrangement [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Missing Scene, Seven Deadly Sins, The Arrangement (Good Omens), envy - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 07:22:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19352191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CadetDru/pseuds/CadetDru
Summary: Crowley chooses his face.





	Hunger/Fall

The Oxford bus to London was quiet. Crowley liked it that way. He wanted to talk to Aziraphale about how they could choose their faces. He had only slight inklings of what Agnes meant that they would do.

“We choose our faces,” Aziraphale said. “What face can we choose? Who could either of us be if not ourselves?”

Crowley had envied Aziraphale’s focus since their first conversation at the edge of the Garden.  Crawly had done what he had been told to do and completed his first Temptation. Aziraphale did what he thought should be done without any specific direction, just out of Love. He gave away his sword and hid it from heaven for millennia. Crawly could have convinced him to eat the entire tree, bark and all, and it would have made no difference to Aziraphale’s choice. 

It inspired Crawly, helped to shape him into Crowley.  If he couldn’t earn his way back into Heaven, he could at least rebel against Hell. Millennia later, it gave him the idea for the Arrangement. Crowley was haunted by his hunger for that return to Grace, to undo his Fall, to crawl his way back up. Doing Good Work for Aziraphale helped to scratch that itch. 

“What face would you take?” Crowley asked. “To save your skin, who could you be?”

Aziraphale started. “I was thinking of you,” he said, with gentle and differing emphasis on every word. “Who can you be? Who could take your place?”

“You would,” Crowley said, commenting not requesting. “I’m looking at holy water here. You are immune, angel.” And he knew that Aziraphale would do it, too.

“I could easily be you. I know how you act, some of how you think.  I could fool them, for a little while. And you could do the same for me, of course.”

“You want to be me?” Crowley asked, really asking if he could be an unFallen angel for a little while.

“Sometimes,” Aziraphale said, smiling sadly. “Could you stand to be me long enough to endure some torture?”

Crowley nodded. That hunger welled up in him. He ached to return to heaven. He wanted to think he had done enough Good to be redeemed. It wasn’t all he had ever wanted, but he did want it so badly.  “I could be an angel again,” Crowley said, which wasn’t quite right.

“You might Fall again,” Aziraphale warned.

“I can stick the landing this time.  You haven’t Fallen yet, so you don’t know the ways. You were lucky.”

Aziraphale frowned. “I don’t know what you mean… the Arrangement never would have made that much difference, that is the whole point as you explained it to me.”

“Not what I was referring to, angel.  Shame you couldn’t keep the sword,” Crowley said.  “It could come in handy if you do go to Hell.”

“No time for regrets,” Aziraphale said, dismissing Crowley’s words with a wave of his hand. “Are you willing to swap?”

“Of course,” Crowley said. “It’s you that I’m worried about.”

“So we’re on the same page,” Aziraphale said. “Just reading different footnotes.”

The bus driver was too terrified of where he was going to pay any attention to him.

“We can switch now,” Crowley said. “You try not to drown, I try not to burn…”

“Your poor car,” Aziraphale said, kindly. Crowley knew that the angel didn’t care at all, he was just sympathetic. 

“Your poor shop. If I were human, I’d have died of all kinds of smoke inhalation today. I can face more fire, if it will keep you safe.” The hunger was twisting with the need to protect his friend.  

“I’m not afraid of a little water,” Aziraphale said.  

He grabbed Aziraphale’s hand a little too tightly when they switched form. He was going to be a true angel again, if only for a little while. Crowley knew that he could never be forgiven, no matter what Aziraphale might believe. But he was doing Good, truly doing good to save the most caring angel he had ever known before or after his Fall. It had to count for something. 


End file.
